#thank you leigh bardugo

[fandomestuff]

[peraltuki]

My canon event was reading shadow and bone in 2021 and never stop reading fantasy books ever since

[dragonqueenstormwitch]

how i sleep at night knowing that kaz turned the emerald palace into another gambling hall for the dregs and named it after his friends

[shhhhimwatchingthis]

hey don't know how many ppl are aware of this but Netflix released their first public viewer engagement report and Shadow and Bone season 2 is number 32 GLOBALLY with a staggering 192,900,000 views. (if all those zeros are getting to you, let me put it this way. thats nearly 193 million views from jan-june 2023)

there are over 18,000 items on Netflix's list putting Shadow and Bone in the top 0.17% of ALL CONTENT

do not let Netflix tell you not enough people were watching.

[daredevil-vagabond]

"...She was Inej Ghafa, and her future was waiting above."

[def-not-kaz-brekker]

controversial opinion but inej ghafa is literally terrifying and (obviously) such a queen.

like she literally held a stadwatch guard at knifepoint after creeping up on him and whispered (I don’t remember the exact quote) “I like it when men beg, but nows not the time” like??? Queen?????

And the end of the crooked kingdom where she cuts pekka rollins after threatening him, and switched alby’s toy lion with a crow?? Fucking terrifying?????

My love for inej knows no bounds and she is undeniably a powerful and scary woman

[iunderstoodthatreference7]

Kaz: He died a hero...

Inej: He died from murder, you dumb fuck!

Kaz: and all I have to remember him by are these two gold plated, .50 caliber Desert Eagle pistoleros. This is for him.

[doorlene]

inej "but even statues crumble when they're made to wait" ghafa and kaz "i'm so afraid i sealed my fate" brekker

[nalesnik-z-morela]

Happy birthday, Nina Zenik!!!! [in Kerch and Ravkan alphabet, i hope i typed it properly] (tap the pic for better quality ;-;)

Since Leigh Bardugo confirmed only zodiac signs of the crows, i decided to post it today because, guess what: it's a double birthday this way!!

I'd like to thank you for all the support, you really make my days with every comment, every like, reblog or message! Summer holiday is a tougher time for me and you all keep making it better, i can't thank you enough <3

Treat yourself with some waffles or anything you like today! Nina (and me :>) would love you to do so <3

🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇

(Also i'm about to post some more drawings and maybe photos from my trip soon so be ready 👀)

Edit:

GUYS‼️ LOOK AT THIS ALL HAIL

⬆️ That's my profile picture now :))))

[capinejghafa]

Ok, but why are my ships like this:

“I would come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together—knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. We never stop fighting.”

Kaz to Inej, Crooked Kingdom (chapter 12)

But she saw Roman rise from the grass. He was only five meters away. He could no longer run; he could hardly walk. Her heart broke when she realized he had crawled through the gold to reach her.

Iris seeing Roman trying to reach her, Divine Rivals (chapter 41)

I'm fine. Fuck.

[stromuprisahat]

Reading first chapters of Ruin and Rising is like wading through mire of so many levels of constantly repeated unacknowledged bullshit.

You live in a starving country? Order someone else to feed the people.

There are wars going on? Kill the guy, who tried to stop the first three and high-five yourself for ending the fourth.

The nation is suffering? Focus on three point nine orphans and bedraggled idiots trailing after you, and solve next five seconds of their life.

You have an idle cult of layabouts following your legend? Let the least reliable guy around handle them.

You have political significance? Throw in your lot with the guy with friendly smile. He certainly doesn't use you, since his great plan is built on thin air.

You haven't been using your powers for weeks? FIND. A. WAY. TO. GET. ANOTHER. DOSE.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

*screams in 10,000 hits on ao3*

[davenweenie]

This made me chuckle, I love that they’re still teenagers while still being gang members

[five-of-cr]

here's the thing about matthias: he isn't the honorable, reformed hero some of the fandom seems to see him as.

yes, he was raised by a tight-knit family of comrade soldiers and decides to betray them in the end. of course that took incredible strength. i don't deny that. but we also need to recognize that the drüskelle are not just some rogue cult. they are a core part of the fjerdan government, who is trying to wipe out the grisha because they are seen as dangerous. that's literally just genocide. however indoctrinated someone is, this is something that is evil from every angle, even if the character can't or won't see it.

and look, i love a good redemption arc, but matthias is such a passive actor in his. he falls in love with nina against his will. she changes his attitudes toward grisha because she's beautiful and kind so all grisha can't be bad, right? this a classic example of the trope of separating the "good ones" from the rest, where you cherry-pick specific individuals to point to as exceptions to a group's nature, which is still implied to be evil. you have to do a lot more than fall in love to truly unearth and address the roots of bigotry.

tbh, this is my biggest critique of the books as a whole. i loathe the "love conquers all" trope that pairs together a character from the oppressed group and one from the oppressors, letting the one show the other through the power of love that being bigoted is not nice. it puts all the responsibility on the former to prove their humanity, and gives all the credit to the latter's ability to be persuaded to recognize it. and then it inevitably leads to forgiveness, because the character has "earned" it by changing their views, once again making the victim seem like the villain if they don't absolve the oppressor of their past "mistakes". also, it's incredibly unrealistic for someone to fall in love with a person who actively hates them and considers them sub-human. in real life, people have to work on their bigotry before that happens, not use the relationship as a plot device for character development.

i think the idea of writing a character like matthias is neat. i think portraying someone's struggle to throw off the suffocating, hateful dogma they've been fed all their life is a story we need more of. i think personal growth of this variety should be celebrated, because otherwise people would never change. but i don't think the people, fictional or real, get to do this without facing profound consequences. it is not enough to feel sorry. it is not enough to apologize. it is definitely not enough to fall in love. and i think writing that lets people off the hook like this grossly oversimplifies power and oppression, and ends up being a feel-good way to romanticize people who cause a lot of harm.

a last note: my opinion is 100% influenced by my being bipoc. matthias is a classic aryan supremacist, even if being aryan isn't the thing he's being supremacist about. my gut reaction to that type of character is always going to be mistrust, both because people in real life have given me reason to be mistrustful and because characters like these are often written in a way that makes you sympathize with oppressors. i don't think matthias earns that trust, and i don't see why i owe him my affection as a reader.

[miabrown007]

“You know, for two people with a love eternal, you’re awfully insecure."

Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

[def-not-kaz-brekker]

Inej ghafa is wonderful and lovely and better than anything I deserve because I’m broken, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that I can’t pull myself into a semblance of a man for her and I would come for her and if I couldn’t walk I’d crawl to her and no matter how broken we were we’d fight our way out together knives drawn pistols blazing because that’s what we do we never stop fighting